03-10-2010, 04:14 AM

Hey all,

I have a 4-year-old mac mini that has recently begun having some issues. It froze up on me a few days ago to the point I wasn't able to access the finder and had to shut it down manually.

When I restarted it, it got to the boot screen with the apple and indicator, but just sat there for an hour. I let it sit for a day or so and when I tried again, it would start to boot again, but turn itself off after about 30 seconds.

I opened it up, cleaned out the dust and replaced the HD and now it will boot and show the folder with a question mark -- but no longer shuts itself down after so long. The new issue is that even with the original install disc in the drive, I can't get it to access it -- I've tried holding down C, X and shift (individually) during boot.

The one boot command that has worked was holding down command+option+c+r to zap the PRAM -- but nothing else.

Any ideas?

Thanks so much!

03-10-2010, 04:49 AM

Welcome to the Forum. 4 y-o Mini so might be a PPC unit or might be the first of the Intel. More info is good. As you are posting you have access to another computer - a Mac? If so, u could start by connecting it by Firewire to other Mac and starting Mini in Target mode by holding T key after powering on, then you can save your essential data from Mini HD. After that disconnect it all and power on Mini put in the Install disk that came with it and hold C key and reinstall OS.

03-10-2010, 05:09 AM

Welcome to the Forum. 4 y-o Mini so might be a PPC unit or might be the first of the Intel. More info is good. As you are posting you have access to another computer - a Mac? If so, u could start by connecting it by Firewire to other Mac and starting Mini in Target mode by holding T key after powering on, then you can save your essential data from Mini HD. After that disconnect it all and power on Mini put in the Install disk that came with it and hold C key and reinstall OS.

I'm having trouble figuring out which model it is exactly -- but it is an Intel version. I am posting on another Mac, so I will try hooking it up to the firewire.

There's no vital data on the HD -- but does it sound as if that was not the original issue with it turning off upon startup? I can always put that one back in if necessary -- but it seems like replacing it would be fine if I could get it to read the disc to install the OS?

Thanks!

03-10-2010, 06:07 AM

The information on precisely what model Mac mini it is is printed on the underside of the machine.

What has probably happened is that the directory is corrupt. You could try booting the machine in single-user mode (command+s on startup) and try running the fsck -fy command as referred to in that mode.

03-10-2010, 06:17 AM

Are you sure you installed the new Hard Drive correctly? Do what Chas suggested and look at the info on the bottom of the Mini and report back. I have worked with both Power PC and Intel Minis and changed drives. Any chance you left something unplugged or not seated?

03-10-2010, 12:29 PM

Hello everyone. I apologize if I'm in the wrong area but I'm new to this forum

I have a mac mini (power from 2003). I cloned an external HD to use as my
main HD because there was hardly any space on the mini to begin with. My
issue is the following:

External HD (Seagate for MAC) has Bren reformatted to work with the power mini. Meaning it is "Journaled" now. I have it hooked up through FireWire and when I turn on the MAC it recognizes the external HD. I went to system preferences and then to Start up Drive and selected the external HD as the new drive to use and then clicked restart. When the computer restrted nothing had changed. It was still running from the mini itself. Ivetried holding down the option key when restarting the computer but the external HD does not show up?

It has worked before On the same computer and so I'm not sure what the issue is now.
Thought? Suggestions?

03-10-2010, 01:13 PM

Originally Posted by Jacko0526

Hello everyone. I apologize if I'm in the wrong area but I'm new to this forum

I have a mac mini (power from 2003). I cloned an external HD to use as my
main HD because there was hardly any space on the mini to begin with. My
issue is the following:

External HD (Seagate for MAC) has Bren reformatted to work with the power mini. Meaning it is "Journaled" now. I have it hooked up through FireWire and when I turn on the MAC it recognizes the external HD. I went to system preferences and then to Start up Drive and selected the external HD as the new drive to use and then clicked restart. When the computer restrted nothing had changed. It was still running from the mini itself. Ivetried holding down the option key when restarting the computer but the external HD does not show up?

It has worked before On the same computer and so I'm not sure what the issue is now.
Thought? Suggestions?

Hi there,

You need to have a copy of Mac OS X installed on the external hard drive, in order to boot from it, otherwise the Mac will just see it as another drive.

Hope this helps.

03-10-2010, 01:17 PM

Originally Posted by Rottie

Hi there,

You need to have a copy of Mac OS X installed on the external hard drive, in order to boot from it, otherwise the Mac will just see it as another drive.

Hope this helps.

Great! Thanks for the suggestion. I'll try it out

03-10-2010, 04:39 PM

Are you sure you installed the new Hard Drive
correctly? Do what Chas suggested and look at the info on the bottom of the Mini and report back. I have worked with both Power PC and Intel Minis and changed drives. Any chance you left something unplugged or not seated?

The mini is a Core Duo 1.66 (A1176)...

As far as leaving something unplugged, I don't think so. There is one thing that came off during the process, but I think it's the airport (Letter D in this image) -- it came disconnected during the process and I'm unsure where the connection was.

Everything else, I believe, is fine.

What has probably happened is that the directory is corrupt. You could try booting the machine in single-user mode (command+s on startup) and try running the fsck -fy command as referred to in that mode.

I tried holding command+s and there was no response...

03-10-2010, 04:43 PM

One thing I forgot to mention: When I first got the mini I upgraded the RAM -- so I'm not sure if it would cause this if it went corrupt or not? I've been trying to find the original RAM but so far I've been unsuccessful, so if there's a way to test it without replacing it, that would be ideal.

03-11-2010, 04:23 AM

Not sure if this could be a potential reason why the new drive is unresponsive to most commands... but the drive isn't brand new, it's actually formerly of my PS3 and I recently replaced it -- which is why I had it lying around. Would I need to format the drive prior to putting it into the mini?

Thanks for any advice/help!

03-11-2010, 04:31 AM

Originally Posted by msaz87

Not sure if this could be a potential reason why the new drive is unresponsive to most commands... but the drive isn't brand new, it's actually formerly of my PS3 and I recently replaced it -- which is why I had it lying around. Would I need to format the drive prior to putting it into the mini?

Thanks for any advice/help!

That could be the reason OSX does not see the drive but that would not explain why you can not boot from the OSX DVD and use Disk Utility to partition/erase the drive.

03-11-2010, 03:09 PM

Originally Posted by Rottie

Hi there,

You need to have a copy of Mac OS X installed on the external hard drive, in order to boot from it, otherwise the Mac will just see it as another drive.

Hope this helps.

Okay, so I tried what you suggested but it's still not working. I'm confused because the HD was working fine before. I had to put it into a new enclosure as the other one got fried. The HD itself has everything intact and I've made sure it has a FireWire port. Any other suggestions?

03-11-2010, 06:31 PM

That could be the reason OSX does not see the drive but that would not explain why you can not boot from the OSX DVD and use Disk Utility to partition/erase the drive.

Well my problem is solved -- but I'm not totally sure why.

I started to try and access the new HD via target disc mode and that wasn't working, so I put in the old HD and tried that -- which did work. With that working, it made me want to try accessing the install disc again, which this time worked for some reason... so, long story short, I was able to re-install the OS and everything seems to work fine now.

I don't know why it did what it did to begin with, or why I couldn't use the boot commands before... but I'm just happy it works now.

Thanks so much for everyone's help!